Activision Publishing proudly announces that Call of Duty: Black Ops II raked in about a half-billion dollars in its first 24 hours of availability, saying they believe this is the fourth consecutive year their annual shooter franchise has achieved the biggest entertainment launch of the year.

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI), today announced that for the fourth consecutive year, the Call of Duty® franchise has delivered the biggest entertainment launch of the year. The highly-anticipated Call of Duty®: Black Ops II has achieved an estimated sell-through of more than $500 million worldwide in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Chart-Track, retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates.

"With first day sales of over half a billion dollars worldwide, we believe Call of Duty is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth year in a row," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard, Inc. "Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars," the two most successful movie franchises of all time. Given the challenged macro-economic environment, we remain cautious about the balance of 2012 and 2013."

On November 13, 2012, millions of fans attended more than 16,000 midnight openings at retail stores worldwide. Reflecting the wave of excitement that swept the globe, Call of Duty: Black Ops II drove social conversation in its first 24 hours as it was a top trending topic globally on Twitter in 23 cities worldwide. Additionally, there have been more than 30 million YouTube video views of the game's live-action 'Surprise' launch trailer since its release on October 29, 2012.

"Call of Duty has become more than a product people buy, it's become a brand people buy into. And every November we do more than just launch a game, we kick off an annual, unofficial but worldwide phenomenon called Call of Duty season," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "I want to thank our incredible team at Treyarch for making an amazing game, everyone at Activision for making this brand a force of nature and our retail partners for their unprecedented support of this franchise. But most importantly I want to thank our millions of fans for their continued support and loyalty and for making us better every day."

Bull crap they were the best sellers last year. Skyrim?!! Battlefield 3?!! There wasn't ANY talk about ANY game other than Skyrim at least a month after the 11/11/11 release date. Modern Warfare 3 sucked so bad, I refused to finish it. I think these guys are just "padding" their resume. Total BS

Hey, stop talking about me. I bought pretty much all star wars fiction books for a long time, old ones, new ones, young and old adult ones. Until they started getting stupid and weird and killing off a bunch of characters and blowing up the galaxy, and destroying the republic. WTF was the point of having the whole rebellion if it just gets blown away again by some random out of the galaxy invaders with super powers.It would be like Q in star trek coming in and obliterating starfleet and earth. Not just threatening to, but actually doing it. It would basically make any future star trek stuff pointless. It would also make all previous sacrifices to make the galaxy a better place pretty pointless.

Thats exactly how it made me feel. It turned me completely off of buying any new star wars fiction. I might start looking into stuff again, but only stuff thats in the timeline prior to all that crap.

Creston wrote on Nov 17, 2012, 10:51:Is that legit? If so, then holy shit. 2 BILLION dollars from their books alone? There are many book publishers who haven't made that much revenue in their entire existence.

Like I'd said before, it's fucking CRAZY that Disney got the whole thing for a shred over just 4 billion dollars...

Creston

Yes, pretty sure thats legit. They've done a TON of book sales, especially starting around the time the thrawn trilogy came out. I remember seeing those in costco and sams for years around that time period. And they were on bestseller lists, etc Plus all the comic books, and other stuff. There's been hundreds of books overall I believe.

Yes its crazy Disney got it for that much (less than pixar), but pretty sure thats because Lucas went to THEM, and asked them to buy him out, and since he's the sole shareholder, he could sell it at WTF ever he wanted. He wanted disney to get it bad enough he was willing to sell it for lower than its worth.

Imagine how many of us nerds bought those books at full price when they came out. That isn't even counting the resale stuff like what I do.

Creston wrote on Nov 17, 2012, 10:51:Is that legit? If so, then holy shit. 2 BILLION dollars from their books alone? There are many book publishers who haven't made that much revenue in their entire existence.

Like I'd said before, it's fucking CRAZY that Disney got the whole thing for a shred over just 4 billion dollars...

Creston

Yes, pretty sure thats legit. They've done a TON of book sales, especially starting around the time the thrawn trilogy came out. I remember seeing those in costco and sams for years around that time period. And they were on bestseller lists, etc Plus all the comic books, and other stuff. There's been hundreds of books overall I believe.

Yes its crazy Disney got it for that much (less than pixar), but pretty sure thats because Lucas went to THEM, and asked them to buy him out, and since he's the sole shareholder, he could sell it at WTF ever he wanted. He wanted disney to get it bad enough he was willing to sell it for lower than its worth.

Dev wrote on Nov 17, 2012, 07:08:Thats a great vid. He's trying to be funny, but he's also being completely honest as to how MTV (and by extension the music industry) views consumers. And he's one of the heads at MTV.

He's an [amateur] actor playing a head of MTV - maybe that's what you meant.

Thats a great vid. He's trying to be funny, but he's also being completely honest as to how MTV (and by extension the music industry) views consumers. And he's one of the heads at MTV.

He's a comedian, not a head of MTV. You actually thought that was a real MTV video and not a comedian making fun of people who, as they get old, think that everything should still be exactly as they remember and nothing should ever change and no form of entertainment should ever be aimed at anyone other than specifically at them?

deqer wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 11:05:When you spend millions of dollars on advertising and shoving your message down our throats 10 times on TV; on news boards, with 10 paragraphs of hype; on radio, then ya I guess it's possible to win $500M worth of peons that paid for your product.

But then again people like us commenting just need to get over the deep rooted problems we have with things like this and Madden. People want their yearly updates from these franchises, this is their "big game expense for 2012", $60 is amazing entertainment value to them.

I have a couple versions over the years, they were fun for me for the time I spent. It's not a franchise I await with baited breath, but for many it is, so be it.

Now the win for those that hate everything COD... All this money is doing nothing for the stock really, that has to get under the skin at the heads of these companies. They just released 500M in product in one day and a $.50 raise in stock, over a tumbling stock to start with. That is how these people really get that influx of additional non-fixed income and if things like this can't move the needle strongly, what's the upside in W.S. gaming business?

Linksil wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 12:07:Best summery of why this sells well is included in Totalbiscuits MP review of the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNLbJKs1jmI&feature=plcp

He pretty much hit it dead on why people play it so much compared to other FPS games. Even on computer.

Cliff notes for those of us who don't want to go through a 35 minute video?

Start at 17:30

Creston wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 11:06:

"Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for "Harry Potter" and "Star Wars," the two most successful movie franchises of all time.

I'm sure that if George Lucas (or Rowlings, for that matter) could have just released the same movie every single year over and over, and their lemming fans would have kept paying 60 bucks for it every single year over and over, that you wouldn't have exceeded their revenues.

Cutter wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 20:43:Poor child, have to get the last word in with everyone don't you?

Gee, then what did you come back for if not the last word? Hypocrite.

Why don't you go plop yourself in front of the television where you belong. I'm sure there's some 'wrastlin' on, or a monster truck pull or something that your ilk so thoroughly enjoys. Drink some corn squeezins for the rest of us, Jethro.

What's the matter, Halsy? Someone calls you out on your bullshit and you get all combative. Go cry into your pillow.

Remember when you were Halsy and you had to change your name because everyone realized what a chump you were and didn't want to deal with you any more? Unfortunately for you, a chump by any other name is still a chump.

Edit: I will bow out of this "discussion" and allow you the last word since I know that's what chumps like you value.

1. I think they actually tried some interesting things with the single player. There's a proto RTS segment, you play as a bad guy for a bit, horsee's, mild branching paths. Very aggravating when it totally takes control to do something cool but perhaps this is better than press X to continue watching cutscene. Overall I'm interested in seeing where it goes. Gameplay is the same but some new toys are interesting. Wallhack scope.

2. Multiplayer: New toys and pretty good maps. Killstreak replaced by score streak so actually playing the fucking game will get you rewards. Missed MW3 so don't know how big a jump it was, but feels more solid than Blops 1 overall.

3. Zombies: Blops 1 only had 2 maps, so three mpas and two modes is an improvement. Locations and weapons/stuff seems a little more varied but plays almost exactly the same. Run backwards and shoot them in the head til you get flanked and die because your teammate insisted on knifing in round 5.

Cutter wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 13:42:Pretty much, yup. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

Got it. So that confirms the label of "whiny drama queen" is accurate.

You're a whiny drama queen? I concur.

Such wit! I know you are but what am I! LOL!

Poor child, have to get the last word in with everyone don't you? Why don't you go plop yourself in front of the television where you belong. I'm sure there's some 'wrastlin' on, or a monster truck pull or something that your ilk so thoroughly enjoys. Drink some corn squeezins for the rest of us, Jethro.

"We choose the right to be who we are. We know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom."

Gib007 wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 11:05:I just don't like the "feel" of CoD games. They all feel the same, as they did when the very first came out. It was ok then, sure (I loved playing it online with my friends), but nowadays my bar is much higher and only certain games like BF3 meet it in terms of feel and detail.

The feel is that of hitting something with an airsoft gun... or a pea shooter.The bullets don't seem to make much impact on an enemy other than the health meter depleting.From what I've seen they're still using the same death animations in place of ragdolls, too. This doesn't help.There seems to be no weight to anything, it's truly an arcade experience. To some this is fine, but I like some meatiness to my FPS'.

Umbragen wrote on Nov 16, 2012, 18:31:Oliver North can go fuck himself.

That is all.

is this guy in the game at all beyond 30 seconds in the first non-interactive cinematic you watch, wherein he is introduced as "colonel north"?

i heard all this uproar about it and was expecting some egregious appearance with someone who is unmistakably "oliver north" but didn't notice it until i decided to replay the campaign half way through.

unfortunately i still hate the campaign just as much the second attempt through it.. first call of duty i've bought i haven't been able to finish. pure bullshit.